and to the series of articles in the "Journal of Hellenic
Studies" (vols. xv.sqq.) by T.W. Allen. To the same scholar and
to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press I am greatly indebted for
permission to use the restorations of the "Hymn to Demeter",
lines 387-401 and 462-470, printed in the Oxford Text of 1912.

Of the fragments of the Epic Cycle I have given only such as
seemed to possess distinct importance or interest, and in doing
so have relied mostly upon Kinkel's collection and on the fifth
volume of the Oxford Homer (1912).

The texts of the "Batrachomyomachia" and of the "Contest of Homer
and Hesiod" are those of Baumeister and Flach respectively: where
I have diverged from these, the fact has been noted.

Hugh G. Evelyn-White,
Rampton, NR. Cambridge.
Sept. 9th, 1914.


INTRODUCTION

General

The early Greek epic -- that is, poetry as a natural and popular,
and not (as it became later) an artificial and academic literary
form -- passed through the usual three phases, of development, of
maturity, and of decline.

No fragments which can be identified as belonging to the first